The PlayStation Vita is easier to develop for

For a long time after release, it was tricky for developers to get their heads around the PlayStation 3 – so it meant that while first party titles were awesome, the system was home to inferior ports of multiplatform titles. Those days are pretty much over – but it’s something that certainly hurt the PlayStation 3 in the early days.

Sony’s doing all it can to ensure that won’t be happening with the Vita.

One reason for that is that Sony has made development significantly easier on the Vita, according to SCE president and CEO Andrew House.

"We have created a much easier development environment than we have for previous platforms," said House.

"That facilitates experimentation and combined with the opportunities digital distribution provides, such as removing the risk of having to commit to an inventory stock, we are able to lower the barrier of entry for developers and hopefully encourage them to experiment and take risks," he added.

It’s a sentiment that seems to be shared by a few developers who’ve decided to tackle Vita development.

“It’s great now to cooperate with Sony,” says A-men developer Bloober’s creative director and vice-president Piotr Bielatowicz to Eurogamer. “When Kutaragi was in charge it was very technologically oriented.” Explaining previous challenges he said “It was, ‘we create the best possible hardware and deal with it. Figure out on your own how to program it.’ For PS3 it might take two weeks for a programmer to just compile a demo. It was so hard in the beginning.”

“Now, I believe Sony is more developer oriented. They reach out to us. They organise seminars to train us, to teach programmers and designers features like Near. The support is very swift. The communication is very good. I would say, at the moment, Sony is by far the nicest format holder to work with.”

It really seems like Sony’s managed to get rid of the arrogant attitude that got them so much hate at the beginning of this generation – and it’s PlayStation gamers that end up winning.

The PlayStation Vita is out….tomorrow!

I'm old, grumpy and more than just a little cynical. One day, I found myself in possession of a NES, and a copy of Super Mario Bros 3. It was that game that made me realise that games were more than just toys to idly while away time - they were capable of being masterpieces.
I'm here now, looking for more of those masterpieces.
I am also the emperor of the backend View all posts by Geoffrey →